Thursday, April 2, 2015

What Happened Through the Cross Was for Us, not for God!

The cross is so powerful..I feel I am seeing its meaning in new ways and uncovering layers of truth not fully experienced before. This article is so great and I want to ponder the thoughts written here more and more. Just wanted to share this article with you all:

Jesus Died for Us ... Not for God - Brian Zahnd

Golgotha
is where the great crimes of humanity — pride, rivalry, blame,
violence, domination, war, and empire — are dragged into the searing
light of divine judgment [this word threw me off a bit - I think I would have said that humanity's ways were put in the light of divine truth, juxtaposed against the truth of Love and thus shown to be terrible and not God-like at all..this makes me realize that it isn't accurate to see the cross as God's violence, blame, domination and war against His Son or us! WE were the violent ones who killed the beloved one of the Father...] At Golgotha we see the system of human
organization that we blithely call “civilization” for what it is: an
axis of power enforced by violence so corrupt that it is capable of
murdering God in the name of what we call truth, justice, and liberty.

Golgotha
is also the place where the love of God achieves its greatest
expression. As Jesus is lynched in the name of religious truth and
imperial justice he expresses the heart of God as he pleads for the
pardon of his executioners. At the cross we discover that the God
revealed in Christ would rather die in the name of love than kill in the
name of freedom. Our savior is Jesus Christ, not William Wallace.

The
cross is both hideous and glorious, simultaneously ugly and beautiful.
It’s as hideous as human sin and as glorious as divine love. It is a
collision of sin and grace. But it is not a contest of equals. In the
end love and beauty win. We call it Easter.

What the cross is not is a quid pro quo where
God agrees to forgive upon receipt of his Son’s murder. What the cross
is not is an economic transaction whereby God gains the capital to
forgive. These legal and fiscal models for understanding the cross
simply will not do.

Jesus does not save us from God, Jesus reveals God as savior. What is revealed on Good Friday is
not a monstrous deity requiring a virgin to be thrown into a volcano or
a firstborn son to be nailed to a tree. What is revealed on Good Friday is the depths of human depravity and the greater depths of God’s love.

Before
the cross is anything else, it is a catastrophe. It is the unjust and
violent lynching of an innocent man. It is the murder of God. Jesus is
sacrificed by the Father only in this sense: The Father sent his Son
into our system of violent power (civilization) to reveal how utterly
sinful it is — so sinful that it will murder the Innocent One. God did
not will the murder of his Son, he simply knew it would occur. But even
Plato knew that. In imagining what would happen to a perfectly just man
in our unjust world, Plato said, “our just man will be scourged, racked,
fettered…and at last, after all manner of suffering, will be
crucified.” (The Republic,
Book II, p. 37) Plato wrote that three centuries before Christ. God
knew what Plato knew. For Jesus to proclaim and inaugurate the kingdom
of God in the midst of our unjust and violent world would require a
supreme sacrifice.

The
death of Jesus was a sacrifice. But it was a sacrifice to end
sacrificing, not a sacrifice to appease an angry god. It was not God who
required the sacrifice of Jesus, it was human civilization. A system
built upon violent power cannot tolerate the presence of one who owes it
nothing. The sacrifice of Jesus was necessary to convince us to quit
producing sacrificial victims; it was not necessary to convince God to
forgive. When Jesus prays for forgiveness on the cross he was not acting
contrary to the nature of God, he was revealing the nature of God as
forgiving love.

Think of it this way: Where do we find God on Good Friday?
Is God found in Caiaphas seeking a sacrificial scapegoat? Is God found
in Pilate requiring a punitive execution? Or is God found in Jesus,
absorbing sin and responding with forgiveness?

The Apostle Paul says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. (2 Corinthians 5:19)
And this should not be misread as God reconciling himself to the
world…as some mistaken atonement theories do! Jesus died for us…not for
God.

The
crucifixion is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive,
the crucifixion is what God in Christ endures as he forgives. The cross
is where God absorbs sin and recycles it into forgiveness.

The
crucifixion is not the ultimate attempt to change God’s mind about us —
the cross is the ultimate attempt to change our mind about God. God is
not like Caiaphas seeking a sacrifice. God is not like Pilate requiring
an execution. God is like Jesus, absorbing sin and forgiving sinners.

The cross is not about payment, the cross is about forgiveness.

Good Friday is not about divine wrath, Good Friday is about divine love.

Calvary is not where we see how just God is, Calvary is where we see how unjust civilization is.

As
long as we think Jesus died for God instead of dying for us, we will
never see the sinfulness of human civilization and the beauty of the
divine alternative: the kingdom of God.

The
justice of God is not retributive justice. In the end retributive
justice changes nothing. The justice of God is entirely restorative. The
only thing God will call justice is setting the world right, not
punishing the innocent. (Our sense of retributive justice is derived
from the fact that we are more punished by our sins than for our sins.)

[These thoughts are so powerful to me..the Father wasn't the ogre demanding a sacrifice in order to
appease His anger..He was forgiveness and love the whole time..He was
the one taking the worst thing that ever happened - that we would kill God! - and
turning it into the best thing ever - God calling us all innocent and ending
the strife inside us once and for all - the need to sacrifice, the
anxiety that we must 'do' something to get His love - for we see at the
cross that we ALREADY had His love and have had it all along, can't lose it! We know now His love and grace and acceptance are ours forever because they remained even when we did the worst thing we could possibly do by killing His Son..if He loved us, claimed us, embraced us even THEN, He loves, claims us, embraces us forever!]

The
bottom line is this: God did not kill Jesus, human civilization did. We
did. Jesus absorbed the blow in love and forgave us. The Father
vindicated his Son on Easter. Now Jesus calls us to follow him into the
kingdom of grace, the kingdom of love, the kingdom of God.

Wow! The cross wasn't ever about a 'payment' for sin, was it? It was always
about God showing us, in such extreme love and grace, that a payment was
never needed! Real Love never makes people 'pay!'

The cross is not another chapter in the book of religion
but is the end of religion, God slamming the book shut forever!

God
didn't need the cross to be 'okay' with us..we needed it to be 'okay'
with ourselves and finally see that we really are worthy to be loved,
valued beyond imagination..

Wow, we really are 'to die for,' aren't we?

We
really are His very own beloved children in whom He is well pleased!
How could any good father say anything less than this about His own dear
children!

What a relief to know that the cross wasn't something God demanded and did so He could put a judgmental, wrathful spotlight on our sin but was something we did (in confusion and pain, not seeing we were loved) that was turned around and used by God to put a bright
heavenly spotlight on LOVE!

What a Love! This is a love beyond anything we could ever dream, a
love that is strong enough to truly banish every fear and heal every
hurt in the human heart!

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May the amazing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. 2 Co. 13:14

Grace Means God is Going to Make Everything Come Out Alright!

“And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceeding well.”

Julian of Norwich

Grace Means...

Grace means there are no demands on you today..you do not need to 'do' anything or 'become' anything - you already ARE all you were meant to be, as a gift (something given, not worked for, something already yours, experienced and enjoyed here and now by simple faith - by seeing it is yours), by Jesus' work on your behalf.

You already ARE righteous, loved, accepted, at peace with God, empowered, free from sin's power, strong, holy, pure, and ONE with God, together with Him forever.

You are His child, included in the royal family, and the inheritance is yours in Christ!

There is nothing left for you to do because Jesus did it all and will manifest it all in you! You are free! Free to enjoy a love relationship with the most Perfect Love of all - HIM!

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Celebrating God's Free Acceptance and Unconditional Love

You can't get away from a love that will not let you go. (Robert F. Capon)

You are the child God always wanted. (Steve McVey)

To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:6)

You are loved and accepted for free...

The Experience of Grace

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when, year and year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a great voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted, by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not try to do anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted." If that happens to us, we experience grace. (Paul Tillich)

Accepted..

Grace overcomes shame, not by uncovering an overlooked cache of excellence in ourselves but simply by accepting us, the whole of us, with no regard to our beauty or our ugliness, our virtue or our vices. We are accepted wholesale. Accepted with no possibility of being rejected. Accepted once and accepted forever. Accepted at the ultimate depth of our being. We are given what we have longed for in every nook and nuance of every relationship....There is a weightlessness about grace. It has the feel of a fairy tale; what makes it a very special fairy tale is that it is true. (Lewis Smedes)

The Mystery - Christ In You!

About Me

Amazon.com WidgetsI am an ordinary person living an ordinary life in the Southern US, a wife and mom, a lover of quiet walks in the woods, summer sunrises over the ocean, reading books aloud to my kids, family movie nights, and just enjoying this wonderful life that is chock-full of grace and acceptance and love. I'm finally learning how to love myself and love my life, all because of the waterfall of Grace, the Loving Presence of our Papa God that gently bathes me within and without, and these posts are my thoughts on that wonderful grace washing over us all and carrying us along in its current throughout our lives. Isn't it wonderful to be on this journey of life and grace together? I thank you for stopping in to visit! I'd love to 'meet' you if you wish to leave a comment or send me an email..blessings to you today and always.. :)

30 Days of Grace Bible Study

The Inheritance - Know His Amazing Love for You!

The Gospel of Grace Is..

The Good News of Grace is that God out of His great love and grace and favor toward the world, sent Jesus to take away our sins, and He isn't counting the sins of the world against them! Wow! We are free to be friends with God again, for He's already friends with us. And not only that, He has taken us with Him out of the realm of sin and death and into the realm of His resurrection life! He included all humanity in Him in His work - we died with Him to sin, and we are alive with Him to God! Truly, it is finished!

This is the good news! Repent (change your mind about your status with God) - He isn't against you but FOR you, favoring you and having mercy on you! The incarnation, death and rising of Christ are God's love message to us, to prove we've always been in God's good graces and to give us the real, living relationship with God that we were created for. There is no way to be OUT of His favor, love, grace and acceptance, no way to be out of Him or His life! Jesus showed us that, so we can enjoy forever the relationship of Love with our Dad that's always been our right and privilege!

He has already taken away your sins on the cross and isn't counting your sins against you. He has brought you into harmony with Himself (reconciled you; He always felt harmonious towards us, we were the ones holding back, feeling we might be rejected because of our sins) by exchanging your sins for His right-ness (by removing our sins from us, He gave us a way to feel clean inside and worthy, reconciled our minds to the idea that we were okay with God..this was done for our benefit, not God's. Our Daddy has always been okay with us and never needed a sacrifice in order to forgive us or to make us acceptable in His eyes!) And He has taken you up to the bosom of the Father, accepted and beloved and alive in Him! (Death is conquered! Only Life awaits!)

He is looking at the whole world with the same love and tenderness that He has for His Beloved Son, Jesus! So open up your heart and agree with this and get to know Him! Faith (simple, happy confidence in Him coming from what He did for you - "Wow, Jesus, You did all that for ME! Thank You!") opens the door and allows Him to bring into your experience the newness of life that He is within you! Yes, within you! The scripture says that God reveals Christ, not outside of us trying to get in, but IN us waiting to be seen and known in intimate fellowship!

Isn't it wonderful to think that, since He sustains us all and holds up the whole creation, and we truly live and move and have our being in Him - He is already in us and has been in us all along, just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed! We can open up and receive/welcome Him in fellowship, greet the One who is there within us with the smile of simple childlike faith (remember faith just means seeing what He already did, what is already so!), and He fills and overflows us, makes every part of us truly full of His very own Life! We start to experience the eternal life that is our right! We start to manifest it in this earthly realm, in these earthly bodies! He bursts forth from within your innermost being like a river of living water, His Spirit flooding your life and spilling out! His very own life, joined with us forever!

Yes, His very own life joined with us forever! In the incarnation, God joined Himself to man irrevocably and permanently. So He became the new representative of our race, not Adam - in fact, He had prior claim to us all along, for before creation even happened God chose us to be IN Christ! It was through Christ that we were even created! So He has always been our true head and source of life, always had the strongest claim on us! So all that He did is effective for all of us. When He died, we all died with Him to all the old lies, confusion and ways of life..and when He rose, we rose with Him into the newness of His life!

What a Savior, what a Redeemer (Rescuer)! He came down and joined with us where we were in death and then conquered that death state and separated us from it forever, bringing us up into the glory of His resurrection life! Wow! You are not of the old but all new like the first day of creation (an even better than that, for you're not in the likeness of Adam but in the likeness of Christ)! See and know yourself as He has always seen and known you since before time began - so innocent and pure before Him, so beloved and precious, His very own dear child! You are fresh and sweet like a newborn baby, untouched by evil, innocent and pure - a new person with Him as your very life source - thus, your being, bound as it is to God's life itself, which is eternal, will never die!

All the old is gone and all things are new! You are a new creation, which is really the original you God always had in mind from before time began, now finally realized and manifested in this world! You are righteous (sinless and in right relationship with God) and having a good, new nature (Christ's own nature) so that you naturally love and trust God! You are perfect before Him, with no stains, faults, or anything amiss at all! You are accepted and acceptable! You are loved and lovely!

You are bound up with Him, locked into the love circle of the Trinity forever! He is in heaven and you are in Him, and you are on earth and He is in you! Inseparable union, infinite bliss! You have the same relationship and same fellowship with the Father that Jesus has! You are one with God and have perfect harmony with Him, perfect fellowship with Him at all times - you can talk to Him about anything, He is the Friend you've always wanted, He will be loyal where others could not, He understands you perfectly, He delights in you.

And you are a complete and whole person! This is the way your life was always meant to be - a person filled with God's Spirit and in perfect love relationship with Him!

Nothing is required of you in this life - you are free to bask in Him and His love and be happy in Him, for He will do it all, and you'll find yourself full of new desires to love people, new hope for the future, new authority and freedom over evil, new joy and peace, new strength, new freshness of grace-gifts falling on you every day!

Every day will be a day of just receiving His love and radiating that love back to Him and being a reflection of His love to the world. They are going to want what you have, because they'll see the unconditional love, the satisfaction, the freedom and joy! They'll be attracted to the blessed, full life you have! And Jesus will be glorified and lifted up!

You're Under a Fountain

You are accepted and you are the righteousness of God no matter what you do, no matter how much you fail, no matter when you fall into sin - you are STILL the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It is not based on your obedience - it is based on the obedience of Jesus Christ....I don’t care how bad your sin was, get up, you’re under a fountain. When you fall, when you fail under a fountain, the fountain does not fail, it keeps coming over you. You are clean, you are righteous in Him. The more you believe this, the more victory you will have over sinning. Come on now, say amen. Give Him a shout just for the heaven of it. (Rob Rufus)

From the Quote Book

You are not your own enemy. There is nothing wrong with you as a Christian. Steve McVey

God's love will never fail you. Jamie Weeks

God never humiliates, shames, or belittles His young'uns. Mike Fitzpatrick

God never loved you for a reason. Wayne Jacobsen

Knowing that God does not expect anything from us is the only way not to despair. Watchman Nee

I need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from the law. Watchman Nee

We are all we were ever meant to be: one with the One who is life. Dan Stone

You don't have to grow, change, or be good to be loved. Brennan Manning

There is nothing you can do that would cause God to love you any more or any less than He does right now. Steve McVey

You have received the life. You cannot - you cannot - fail to manifest it. Dan Stone

No matter how great we think Him to be, His love is always greater. Brennan Manning

Jesus Christ loves us as we are, and not as we should be. Brennan Manning

A real gift never puts the receiver in debt. A real gift is only to enjoy. Lewis Smedes

Jesus not only loves you, He also likes you. Mike Yaconelli

With grace, failure doesn't make any difference. David Seamands

And deep is calling out to deep

In the roar of your waterfall

Your breakers of love

Sweep over my heart

And I'm tumbling

In the waves of your grace

~ Michelle Bass

We areloved and acceptedby Jesusour Dearest FriendJUST AS WE AREwithout needingto changewithout needingto be betterwithout needingto do more-accepted and lovedtoday and every daynow and foreversmiled on by Jesuswrapped in the Spiritdelighted in by the Father!

You are for meOn the mountainYou are for meIn the battleThrough the failuresIn the victoriesYou are for meHallelujahIn the morningIn the eveningWhen I'm dancingWhen I'm weepingThrough the stormsI won't be shakenYou are for meHallelujah!

If my God is for me,Who can be against me?

Kelanie Gloeckler

Your whispering grace...

Under the waterfallI'm finally letting down my wallsUnder the waterfallAll my burdens feel so small

Echoing Green

According to HimI'm beautiful,Incredible,He can't get meOut of His head.According to HimI'm funny,Irresistible,EverythingHe ever wanted.

Orianthi

Waterfall Websites

I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice...You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. From Psalm 16